a question for Jundo or anyone else

[Gautami]

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

Thank you Scott... I feel MUCH better
G.

[Dosho]

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

Scott... thanks for help. You are correct. Why am I the only one who is getting it? I know my english (my second language)is poor, but still ops:
Gassho
G

The reason it only shows up on your posts is because those are the only ones you are allowed to edit. All of us see the same exact thing on our posts. And, if it makes you feel better, I wondered the same thing at first.

G, S

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

Hi all,

I just wanted to thank everyone for their wonderful posts.

Hi Jundo, sorry about the misreading (rowan still sick with cold).

gassho,
rowan
who hopes to have more brain next week......

[will]

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

Just ignore my last post.

----------------------------

DM
You're soaking in it.

Yes. and it is quite refreshing. Zest fuuuullllly clean.

G

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

He meant that "sickness, old age and death" are suffering when we resist the natural reality of "sickness, old age and death."

And what is this "natural reality"?

Gassho

You're soaking in it.

Shit. I've succumbed to wise-ass quips.

[will]

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

He meant that "sickness, old age and death" are suffering when we resist the natural reality of "sickness, old age and death."

And what is this "natural reality"?

Gassho

[Jundo]

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

1. All composite things are impermanent
2. Everything defiled is suffering
3. All phenomena are empty and without inherent entity
4. Nirvana is peace

Hi Again,

Uchiyama Roshi (one of the great Soto Zen Masters whose book we are just reading in the book club) phrased the "Four Seals" a bit differently, especially No. 4:

"Nirvana is peace", but also this can be phrased in Mahayana Buddhism as "all things are themselves ultimate reality, or all things are as they are ... everything is truth in itself" Thus, we believe that "all phenomena are empty and without inherent identity" ... yet not, and each is absolutely real and complete unto itself. Guatami is 100% Gautami, with not a darn thing that can be done to make her more or less "Guatami than she is (even as, of course, from another perspective ... there's no "Guatami" !!)

So, one way to "peace" is to see Nirvana, that there is no "self" to bump into other "selfs". Another is that Nirvana is just each "self" as perfectly just what it is, perfectly imperfectly just itself. This is also peace.

And also No. 2., Everything is suffering. People sometimes think that "life is suffering" because it contains such things as sickness, old age and death, but that is not (in our view) what the Buddha meant. He meant that "sickness, old age and death" are suffering when we resist the natural reality of "sickness, old age and death." If you are, for example, at peace with being ill, growing old and eventually dying .... where's the problem? In fact the Buddha eventually got old, sick and died. He never found an escape from that reality!

This ties in with what we said above: sickness is just what it is, and absolutely true ... old age and death the same. That was the subject of my talk today on the Leaf "sit-a-long" ...

http://treeleafzen.blogspot.com/2008/08 ... a-xvi.html

So, live this life ... and though there may be "pain" "tears" as well as "joys" and "pleasures", be at peace with each ... and keep it all in good balance and moderation too! It is all "real" and your life!

That is our take on the "Four Seals".

Gassho, Jundo

[Gautami]

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

Hello Jundo... thank you for the metaphore. Yes, it is not only beautiful but also perfectly illustrates the practice. Yes, embracing the paradox of a koan and 'living' it is a perfect path cutting through ideas, beliefs, logic...
Need to think more about your note...
Gassho
G.

Hello will...
According to His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, the Four Seals are four axioms that define Buddhists. He said (would have to look for the source of this quote - have it someplace :wink: ),

‘The acceptence of these four marks the difference between a Buddhist and a non-Buddhist.”
There are many teachings in Buddhism, thousands of axioms. Some are interperatable, some are direct, but with so many it is nice to have these four pointed out as the essence. So, luckily, the Buddha’s teachings can be summarized with these:

1. All composite things are impermanent
2. Everything defiled is suffering
3. All phenomena are empty and without inherent entity
4. Nirvana is peace

These Four Seals also establish the Four Noble Truths, the first thing the Buddha taught after his enlightenment through his own efforts. By knowing what is real and rejecting what is not real, we can also become enlightened, we can become the Buddha. By knowing what is real we can establish ‘valid cognition’ and by observing our reality correctly we can stop creating bad karma which is actions based on not understanding our reality. If we act without knowing, we are making a mistake. So by understanding the Four Seals, we can free ourselves, little by little, from the troubles we are having and become happy.

Also thanks for your comment - need to 'digest' it a bit...
Gassho to you too
G.

Scott... thanks for help. You are correct. Why am I the only one who is getting it? I know my english (my second language)is poor, but still ops:
Gassho
G

[will]

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

My understanding is within the no-self 'seal' of Buddhism...
Thanks...

G.

What this no self "Seal" means, I don't know. Is that some kind of metaphor?

What I was referring to is this ego that looks for answers and seeks enlightenment. This thing we call "us, me, or I" is very fragile and held together with thin glue. It is only different pieces of a larger whole. The question that it was asking and the answer it was seeking no longer matter and it just become part of the mix.

You probably heard it said a lot of times that there is no Gautami. Gautami vanishes when the hair on the face, and on the arms is felt along with the thousand or million other myriad experiences. The thing is, there is no enlightenment that can be separated from anything else. As soon as it's separated, it is lost. As soon as it is conceptualized or made a personal matter, it is lost.

Your true self does not need to seek enlightenment. In not seeking it, it presents itself.

It is a matter of the person who wants to become enlightened, and then they find out enlightenment was always here and who and what they thought they were, seeking whatever they thought they wanted, doesn't exist. It is an illusion.

Gassho

Will

[Dosho]

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

Gautami,

I believe it's just giving you the option of editing your post if you saw something that you wanted to change.

Gassho,
Scott

[Jundo]

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

Discussion: 1) if we remember that we (or anything else) are a process (no-self as an enduring consistent and permanent entity), if we use the word ‘self’ as a verb instead of noun, 2) if we replace the word ‘realization’ with a word ‘recognition’ (this sometime occurs, to different degrees, in the process of meditation, a recognition of increasingly empty ‘spaces’ between thoughts and emotions, occasional experience of a resolution of physical body, occasional experience of disappearence of a sense of ‘I’ but awareness of being a part of an environment), in other words recognizing reality of how things really are when we are just a bit more awake, then yes, there is nothing to be changed or atchieved. There is no need to change anything or any one, just “realize or recognize the true nature” of how it really is…
Question: If training in maintainning clear awareness of the present moment (in the sitting meditation or in every day tasks (I call it meditation-in-action), which seem to be the emphasis in Zen practice, then, eventually, the practice leads to the recognition, or “Realization” or “waking up” to our true nature, the realization of how things really are.
So there is nothing to change, only recognize the true nature of all...
Thanks with gassho
"Gautami

Hi Again, Guatami,

I like your formulation very much, especially of seeing our "self" as a verb, so long as we simultaneously see that (in our Soto view):

1- there is no need or benefit from"maintaining clear awareness of the present moment" for every single timeless moment, 24/7. Awarenesses of this and that, and "no this/that", all come and go, even during Zazen. Sometimes we will have a "non-dualistic" experience of "no this/that", and that is insightful and vital to our Practice. It is why we sit Zazen, dropping all judgments, "likes" and "dislikes", categories, names, thoughts of "this" and "that". We experience a reality before all that mental "stuff". Sometimes we can even drop the "I" away.

1- And sometimes we have no such awareness during Zazen or during the rest of life (not two, by the way), and our minds are cluttered with Stuff and "I". But true "non-dualism", in our view, is to drop the dualistic separation even between "stuff" and "no stuff", "I" and "I-less"! :wink: We live in this world as much as we "see through" it and, most importantly, even when we don't "see through" it. We realize that there is nothing wrong even when we don't "see through" this world to the "no stuff".

1- Some folks in Buddhism and other Eastern Religions think that only the "no stuff/no I" is TRUE, while our world of "stuff/I" is FALSE. They try to get away from this world. We don't. All of it, when seen clearly, is "One's True Nature", even the crappy parts that we usually resist (you know, "sickness, old age, death" ... that "stuff" that set the Buddha off on his gradual search, war and poverty and all the rest). Thus, the most important Zen saying ever, I believe ...

When you first study Zen mountains are mountains. Then mountains are no longer mountains. Finally mountains are mountains again

So ordinary! Yet so extra-ordinary!

1- Thus, I describe our Zazen practice this way ...

... and that is why there is no way to do Zazen "wrong" ... even when you are doing it completely "wrong":

There is no 'bad" Zazen, even the bad Zazen. So, we sit looking at the clear, open blue sky without clouds (clouds represent thoughts, the blue sky represents the mind clear of thoughts). Clouds drift in and out, while some days are very blue and some days completely cloudy without any blue sky visible. It is just the weather, which changes. The blue sky is there even when hidden by the clouds. Also, nothing "wrong" with clouds ... it is all the natural sky. Something like that. Blue sky and clouds are all the sky, do not wish to break up the sky. The sky and the weather are just the sky and the weather on any given day.

We do not try to "silence the thoughts before they arise" in Skikantaza. It is more that we allow the thoughts that naturally drift into mind to to naturally drift out of mind, much as clouds naturally drift in and out of a clear blue sky. In this way, return again and again to the open, clear blue sky.

One of the key points about Master Dogen's approach to Zazen is to allow the clouds (of thought) to drift naturally out of mind (our thoughts of this and that, likes and dislikes, judgments, events, etc) and we come back again and again to the clear blue sky. Do that again and again, 100 billion times and 100 billion times again. So, no need to "catch" the thoughts and chase them away, even as we seek during Zazen to find the open, blue sky.

HOWEVER, Dogen taught "non-thinking" (also called "thinking not thinking"). That means that there is nothing "wrong" with the clouds. It is not that blue sky is "good" while clouds are "bad" (some Buddhism and other Eastern philosophies imply that). We allow the clouds to drift out of mind, but neither do we resent the clouds when present or on very cloudy days. Even on those days when the sky is all cloudy, and not an inch of blue is present, the blue sky is still there behind the clouds. WE DO NOT SEEK TO BREAK UP OR RESIST ANY PART OF THE SKY, CLOUDS OR BLUE ... It is all the unbroken sky. Understand?

Thus, allowing things to just be the way they are, no judging, not resisting, being with the flow, allowing 'happy' days to be happy and 'sad' days to be sad, all while dropping all idea of 'happy' and 'sad', whether really enjoying or really not enjoying ... fully dropping away any and all thought of doing Zazen 'right' or doing it 'wrong' ... THIS IS DOING IT RIGHT. And when you are doing it right, it will usually feel like you are doing it right, for there is no resistance, and a great sense of balance.

Fighting things, wishing things were some other way that how they are, judging, resisting, going against the grain and the flow, wishing 'sad' days were happy or 'happy' days were happier ... filled with a sense of self bumping up against all the other 'selfs', with a mind held by thoughts of doing Zazen 'right' or doing it 'wrong' ... THIS IS DOING ZAZEN WRONG. And when you are doing it wrong, it will usually feel like you are doing it wrong, for there is resistance, and a sense of imbalance.

But as well, even at those times when Zazen feels 'wrong', when there is resistance or imbalance ... it is still 'right', still 'Zazen', still just what it is. IT CANNOT BE WRONG. This last point is vital to understanding.

Yes, that is a Koan. Is it clear? Please really really penetrate in your body and mind what I just wrote.

1- Hope that helps.

Gassho, Jundo

PS- I have no idea what a "tag edit" is. All I can do is tell you to seek to fix it, yet embrace it whether you can or not! :wink:

[Gautami]

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

Jundo sensei... some of my notes have a tag "edit". Does it mean the text contains mistakes? How do I detect them? What can I do about it?
With apologies...
Gautami

[Gautami]

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

will... do you mean Gautami who set out to become enlightened, set out to recognize her true Buddha nature a moment ago is not Gautami who continue? There is no continual identity of Gautami only (historical continuation) process? This is the only way I inderstand your words... My understanding is within the no-self 'seal' of Buddhism...
Thanks...
G.

[will]

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

What sets out to become enlightened, is not necessarily what realizes enlightenment.

Gassho

[Gautami]

Re: a question for Jundo or anyone else

... thanks every one... it seems to be:
Problem: confusion of meaning of words. Language necessarily reflects dualistic view, therefore it is impossible explain non-dualistic reality using language/logic. It can be only expereinced.
Discussion: 1) if we remember that we (or anything else) are a process (no-self as an enduring consistent and permanent entity), if we use the word ‘self’ as a verb instead of noun, 2) if we replace the word ‘realization’ with a word ‘recognition’ (this sometime occurs, to different degrees, in the process of meditation, a recognition of increasingly empty ‘spaces’ between thoughts and emotions, occasional experience of a resolution of physical body, occasional experience of disappearence of a sense of ‘I’ but awareness of being a part of an environment), in other words recognizing reality of how things really are when we are just a bit more awake, then yes, there is nothing to be changed or atchieved. There is no need to change anything or any one, just “realize or recognize the true nature” of how it really is…
Question: If training in maintainning clear awareness of the present moment (in the sitting meditation or in every day tasks (I call it meditation-in-action), which seem to be the emphasis in Zen practice, then, eventually, the practice leads to the recognition, or “Realization” or “waking up” to our true nature, the realization of how things really are.
So there is nothing to change, only recognize the true nature of all...
Thanks with gassho
Gautami